James Hansen, the NASA scientist who probably dreamed up the Great Climate Change Hoax all by himself so he and all his fellow scientists could get rich and drive Lamborghinis while the rest of us eat our shoes in a room dimly illuminated by newfangled Socialist lightbulbs, somehow managed to get Fred Hiatt drunk enough to publish an op-ed in which Hansen looks at the current dry state of the planet and slaps around the denialists, who include, of course, Hiatt's intellectual-in-residence on the subject, George Effing Will....

Such events used to be exceedingly rare. Extremely hot temperatures covered about 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent of the globe in the base period of our study, from 1951 to 1980. In the last three decades, while the average temperature has slowly risen, the extremes have soared and now cover about 10 percent of the globe. This is the world we have changed, and now we have to live in it - the world that caused the 2003 heat wave in Europe that killed more than 50,000 people and the 2011 drought in Texas that caused more than $5 billion in damage. Such events, our data show, will become even more frequent and more severe.

And this is how Politico, which still somehow fails to notice how much more comfortable Willard Romney is around rich white people, assesses Hansen's report:

The study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is likely to ruffle Republican feathers and revive long-standing disputes over climate science.

Because, everything, even the end of the world, is all about the stupid damn horserace. Who do you like in the Apocalypse Stakes? I've got Pestilence at 4-1. I'm sure that, sooner or later, Breitbart's Mausoleum For Unemployable Pissants will chime in here so, to prepare ourselves, let's recall this towering insight from the dead guy. Meanwhile, down in Oklahoma, they lost two towns to wildfires that occurred because everything's so dry that it burns easily, and because some climate scientists once sent some e-mails that somebody hacked.

As many as 18 fires have been reported since late last week. No serious injuries have been reported. Three firefighters were treated and released Friday after suffering burns, Finch-Walker said. The National Weather Service said .15 to .16 inches of rain fell early Sunday in the area, but no more was expected until at least midweek. Temperatures for the next two to three days are expected to be somewhat milder, in the 90s rather than above 110 degrees, meteorologist Bart Haake said.

Somewhat milder. In the 90's. And me without my earmuffs. And, just for the record, in 2008, the last time he ran, Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Fakery) got 51,283 votes out of the 93,756 votes that were cast in Cleveland County which is, at the moment, burning down. Just sayin'.